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Reaping the Whirlwind File: Another awful story shows the dark side of IVF and Surrogate Motherhood
Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 8/3/2014 | Msgr. Charles Pope

Posted on 08/04/2014 2:12:23 AM PDT by markomalley

Jesus said, “What God has joined together, let no one divide.” But this is exactly what we have done in our divisive and reductionist time. We have done so not only with marriage but with sexuality and the procreation and raising of children. God has joined together, sex, marriage and procreation. But we have separated and isolated them:

  1. Regarding sex we have said that this is no necessary connection between sex and procreation – and we have done this the contraceptive mentality.
  2. Regarding Marriage we have said there is no necessary connection between getting married and having children and we have done this throughout he widespread use of contraception and now by embracing the notion of same-sex unions.
  3. Regarding children we have even said that there is no necessary connection between having children and having sex. And we have done this by in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood and the like.

We have separated and isolated things which God has joined together. Sex marriage and procreation are meant to be together and each exists for and on behalf of the others. We have sown the wind and are reaping the whirlwind. For:

  1. If it is widely held that sex is just about pleasure or “showing love” and has nothing to do with procreation then for many it no longer makes sense any longer to restrict it to Holy Matrimony, or even to heterosexuals for that matter.
  2. If it is widely held that having children is not an essential work of marriage and that marriage is just about two adults being happy, then for many, restricting marriage to heterosexuals no longer makes sense.
  3. If it is widely held that conceiving a child is no longer necessarily linked to the marriage act, then it no longer makes sense to many that conceiving children in test tubes, borrowing sperm or eggs, or renting a womb (or any combination of same) is strange and problematic.

In separating what God has joined we have become lost in a strange world where life is both hated (via contraception and abortion) and were life has been turned into a commercial product up for sale (via in vitro etc). Indeed we have come upon the era of designer babies, we are already into the first stages of cloning, gene splicing and heather having three or more parents. We are heading for the hatchery and not far from the Novels 1984, and Brave New World.

And very few today bat an eye at the prospect. Very few have considered the darkness of turning human life into a designer product up for sale: an egg from here, a sperm from there, rent a womb over there; couple strands of DNA here and some more from there: Heather has six “parents” and a 7th “mother” in the womb that was rented to gestate her.

Even fewer seem to care that it is children who going to be born into this utter chaos and who are having a social experiment foisted upon them, with they themselves as the guinea pigs.  No, who cares about them, haven’t you gotten the memo that this world is all about adults and what they want? Marriage isn’t about what is best for children, its about adults and their feelings and what they want. Sex isn’t about children either, its about what adults want to do. And even having children isn’t about children. Its about what adults want, in the way they want it. Yes even having children is about adults. And heaven protect the child who has a disability, 80 – 90 % of simply aborted. Heaven protect the excess “embryos” (i.e. children), from in vitro fertilization, who don’t get selected for implantation by the doctor, into the freezer or worse with them. And if you don’t think sex selection hasn’t been going on for a long time in the designer baby world, wake up. Heaven protect the infant who is the wrong sex.

Dark (not brave) new world. And here follows an excerpt from an article which describes another dark side of the designer baby world:

A Thai woman who carried a baby with Down’s syndrome as a surrogate mother has vowed to take care of the boy after his natural parents gave him up….

The Australian couple left Gammy, now six months old, with Pattaramon Chanbua but took his healthy twin sister. Gammy has a congenital heart condition, a lung infection and Down’s and is in a Thai hospital for urgent treatment. God is watching. Can you imagine appearing before the Judgment Seat of Christ with this on your record? Lets hope they repent.  

A campaign to help the baby begun online after Thai newspaper Thairath published Gammy’s story last week. It has raised more than $150,000 ($140,000; £83,000) from 3,400 donors in 11 days. Ok, nice but how about a campaign to end the practice of surrogacy? Can’t folk sees that hideous outcomes like this are going to be frequent when people turn human life into a product to be bought and sold, and seek designer babies, and to throw away imperfect products and “misprints?”   

In Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott expressed his sadness: “I guess it illustrates some of the pitfalls involved in this particular business.” Really, is the best outrage Mr. Balir can muster? “Pitfall” ??  “Business” ??

Ms Pattaramon was paid $15,000 (£9,000) to be a surrogate for the couple, whose identities remain unknown. She was told of the child’s condition four months after becoming pregnant, prompting the couple to ask her to have an abortion. She refused, saying it was against her Buddhist beliefs. Great couple huh? Also, too bad the woman’s Buddhist beliefs didn’t prevent her from renting her womb for 15K.  (Full article is here: Surrogate Mother Cares for Disabled Child Rejected by Biological “Parents”)  

So, the darkness continues to grow, and as it gets darker it gets colder; in this case a lot colder. In a secular age, some like to boast there is no God. But the problem is if there is no God and everyone is god. Stories like this reminded us that if we want to play God, are going to do a lousy job of it.

The atheists and secularist may think of our God, the God of the Bible in poor terms, but at least in God’s world there is room for imperfection and mercy. Story’s like the one above remind us that in this dark (not brave) new world where man becomes god, there is increasingly no room for imperfect children, and no mercy for them either. Designer life, up for sale, is not just a bad idea, it is a dangerous and heartless one, and it increasingly amounts to a genocide against the disabled who bring us gifts, whether we want to admit it or not. 

Where have these heartless, merciless notions come from? Pride? Sure, because we want to be gods who design and toy with life and reserve the right to kill what we have made. Lust? Yes indeed, because we want “sex” without cost or responsibility. Anger? Yes again, for we increasingly kill what does not please us. Sloth? That too, for most are too busy to care about the is “arcane” stuff and consign the matter to the “none of my business as long as no one gets hurt” file. Well a lot have been hurt and killed and lot more are going on death row might soon.

We have sown the wind, and now we are reaping the whirlwind. It began with a great divorce wherein we separated what God has joined. Sex, marriage and having children are meant to be together. We have separated and isolated them and thus we sowed the wind. And then came the whirlwind of abortion, promiscuity, AIDS, STDs, teenage pregnancy, divorce, cohabitation, single motherhood, homosexual confusion, and the entire meltdown of the meaning of marriage and human sexuality. In the end it is the children who suffer, it is always the children.

Call the Church out of touch, call us old fashioned, but don’t call us inconsistent. We are just as opposed to abortion and contraception (which wants sex without procreation), as we are opposed to IVF and surrogate motherhood, cloning (and every other dark art on the way) that wants children without sex or marriage. I guess we’re just strange that way. We really think that sex and marriage and having children ought to go together. It’s what God set forth, its what’s best for children, and we ought not separate what God has joined.


TOPICS: Catholic
KEYWORDS: msgrcharlespope; prolife
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Very few have considered the darkness of turning human life into a designer product up for sale: an egg from here, a sperm from there, rent a womb over there; couple strands of DNA here and some more from there: Heather has six “parents” and a 7th “mother” in the womb that was rented to gestate her.

Who needs the 7th "mother"? Behold, the artificial womb (from the Annals of the New York Academy of Science)

1 posted on 08/04/2014 2:12:24 AM PDT by markomalley
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To: markomalley

My beautiful triplet nieces turn 24 next month. They were conceived via IVF, one of modern medicine’s true miracles. Perhaps you can come over to their birthday party and tell them how awful it is that they walk the earth.


2 posted on 08/04/2014 2:30:48 AM PDT by jalisco555 ("My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy" - Ronald Reagan)
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To: jalisco555

My IVF-conceived twin boys would have a blast at your nieces’ party! :)

My husband’s and my twins are healthy, happy, well-behaved, homeschooled, learning to think for themselves, and — I hope — future conservatives. I don’t think we have too much to apologize for.


3 posted on 08/04/2014 2:34:33 AM PDT by Hetty_Fauxvert (FUBO, and the useful idiots you rode in on!)
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To: Hetty_Fauxvert

The joy that my nieces have brought to the lives of everyone around them, particularly my brother and sister-in-law, is incalculable. I’m sure the same is true of your twins. As for the girls’ politics, though, I’m not sure they really have any. But they’re young.


4 posted on 08/04/2014 2:38:13 AM PDT by jalisco555 ("My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy" - Ronald Reagan)
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To: AllAmericanGirl44; Biggirl; Carpe Cerevisi; ConorMacNessa; Faith65; GreyFriar; Heart-Rest; ...

Msgr Pope ping


5 posted on 08/04/2014 3:04:25 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: jalisco555; Hetty_Fauxvert

Three questions just for curiosity sake:

How many of the mother’s eggs were fertilized?

What happened to the blastocysts that were not implanted?

Are there plans to implant the remaining blastocysts?


6 posted on 08/04/2014 3:11:05 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
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To: markomalley

No idea. I’m their uncle, not their father. All I know is that these girls wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for this technology.


7 posted on 08/04/2014 3:40:38 AM PDT by jalisco555 ("My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy" - Ronald Reagan)
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To: markomalley
In separating what God has joined we have become lost in a strange world where life is both hated (via contraception and abortion) and where life has been turned into a commercial product up for sale ...

I have observed before that this is a society in which a person will do absolutely anything, including kill, to avoid having a baby ... right up to the moment the same person will do anything, including kill, to have a baby.

8 posted on 08/04/2014 3:41:44 AM PDT by Tax-chick (No power in the 'verse can stop me.)
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To: jalisco555

Catholics aren’t against all fertility treatments — only those that involve the destruction of embryos, obtaining genetic material through means that go against Catholic teaching, and/or “selective reduction”. The latter is a “polite” way of saying abortion. Many times, more than one embryo is implanted and many don’t survive or are culled if found to have abnormalities. I am not sure how anyone can call any of the practices above harmless or OK. The means do not justify the ends.


9 posted on 08/04/2014 4:02:27 AM PDT by grimalkin (We are a nation under God. If we ever forget this, we are a nation gone under. -Ronald Reagan)
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To: Tax-chick
Because it is all about them. Once they realize the kid isn't just a new toy and the pain of raising him becomes apparent that child is in for a lot of emotional neglect.

Raising kids requires sacrifice and that isn't Mr and Mrs Instant Gratification's thing.

10 posted on 08/04/2014 4:09:19 AM PDT by hopespringseternal
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To: hopespringseternal

I think that the ideology of “choice” is very dangerous when it applies to children. It renders every life contingent, in a way, even after they’re born. “If you hadn’t chosen to have that baby, then ... blah blah blah,” as if you’re expected to go back in time and “un-choose” his life.

It’s creepy and scary.


11 posted on 08/04/2014 4:13:13 AM PDT by Tax-chick (No power in the 'verse can stop me.)
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To: jalisco555; Hetty_Fauxvert

Do either of you think the God who turned His own crucifixion into salvation for the world couldn’t bring beautiful new souls into the world through IVF?

The blessings gained from the act notwithstanding, the act was immoral to begin with.


12 posted on 08/04/2014 4:34:05 AM PDT by Claud
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To: grimalkin

Even if no embryos are destroyed, IVF is intrinsically immoral because you have to commit a mortal sin to obtain the seed.

Doctors should be doing everything they can to help couples conceive naturally instead of sticking their pipettes in the middle.


13 posted on 08/04/2014 4:38:21 AM PDT by Claud
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To: jalisco555; markomalley
An uncalled-for statement. Nobody thinks it is awful that these little children "walk the earth." We think it is awful that their siblings remain in cryo-suspension (they're frozen --- I've heard them called "kid-cicles") or they were destroyed, plain-out exterminated like an infestation of maggots; we think it is awful they are the bought-and-paid-for product of a fertility lab which would have culled them if they manifested an unmarketable defect.

Even if their parents have the best will in the world for them, they turned them into commodities by the way they were conceived.

Nobody on this forum has yet willed total machine-based "hatchery" gestation; and yet many have willed every single incremental step that will lead up to this horrific conclusion.

14 posted on 08/04/2014 4:59:06 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("God bless the child who's got his own." Arthur Herzog Jr. / Billie Holiday)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

I can’t think of anything more intrinsically pro-life than the fact that these girls, and their future children, grandchildren etc. are among us. And they are anything but commodities.


15 posted on 08/04/2014 5:11:42 AM PDT by jalisco555 ("My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy" - Ronald Reagan)
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To: markomalley; Tax-chick; GregB; Berlin_Freeper; SumProVita; narses; bboop; SevenofNine; ...
While the couple admitted they had a baby girl about the same age as baby Gammy and that they had used a surrogate, they say she did not have a twin brother.

Australian couple claim they are not the parents of baby Gammy — born to a Thai surrogate

Ping!

16 posted on 08/04/2014 5:32:21 AM PDT by NYer ("You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears." James 4:14)
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To: markomalley

**Even fewer seem to care that it is children who going to be born into this utter chaos and who are having a social experiment foisted upon them, with they themselves as the guinea pigs. No, who cares about them, haven’t you gotten the memo that this world is all about adults and what they want?**

Only what the parents want — no consideration for the children.


17 posted on 08/04/2014 6:36:04 AM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: Hetty_Fauxvert

Except that they will never know their real biological father.


18 posted on 08/04/2014 6:38:54 AM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: Tax-chick

Very well put.


19 posted on 08/04/2014 6:40:13 AM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: jalisco555

**and their future children, grandchildren etc. are among us**

They say that this is where the problems show up.


20 posted on 08/04/2014 6:42:01 AM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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